Interested in Spring hockey, life is good!:-)

May has been marching along, and here we are almost at the end! The days have been taken up with me subbing, volleyball, Lacrosse, horse riding, watching hockey (go Oilers!), birthday parties and more. A busy Spring as always! Well, the watching hockey part isn't always there, but how grateful am I that I am still interested at this point in the season lol. They are up 2-1 on the Flames with game 4 on tonight, I am hopeful but always ready for disappointment. The last time I blogged we were also up 2-1 in the series and then ended up losing the next two:-/. Although we did win that series in 7, I don't think we would survive the same way if we let that happen again so we must win tonight! Once again I say - GO OILERS!

I have been following the progress of the little birds nest that showed up on our deck a few weeks ago. The eggs hatched sometime on or just before the 14th (that is the day I noticed there were birdies there instead of eggs) and just yesterday (the 23rd) I noticed that the birds had flown away. All grown up and leaving the nest! It was fun to watch them get bigger in their nest, they were so squished in there yesterday morning that it was not surprising to me when I checked in on them later in the day and they were gone. I wish I could have watched them fly away! Have a great life birdies!

This past weekend I attended a three day volleyball coaching clinic at UW. It was a very stretching experience, I learned a ton. I was put on the spot a few times and made to feel very uncomfortable, but I am coming to understand that the discomfort may be an okay thing to have experienced - I don't know if you can learn hard things without being uncomfortable. I am very glad I did it, even if I never actually coach above the Kirkland Boys and Girls level. On Friday night, my boys and girls club team had their first game against their parents and it was so much fun! The kids pulled out a narrow victory and everyone had a great time:-).

After a very busy week and weekend last week, we are rolling into a much more laid back week. I did work this afternoon at Horace Mann as a sub and will probably pick up a job somewhere for Thursday, but our weekend is looking very relaxed at the moment. The kids and Brian are off Friday and Monday for Memorial Day but we aren't going anywhere. May do a few small things as a family but will probably hang around the house a lot. I do want to do some more yard work. I'm hoping for some warmer temperatures than are being forecasted though, seriously where is Spring! 

Hopefully the next time I write I am still interested in hockey! Time will tell!

 

Covid finally gets us - but only some of us:-)

Well it finally happened - Covid decided it was time to hit the Kroeker house! Nathan had a friend over on Friday April 22nd, and this friend tested positive the next day. We knew our time was coming eventually, so now we just had to wait until Monday evening to test and see if we once again escaped! Nathan had a virtual piano recital on Sunday and he did a great job! He has come so far in piano! On Monday night, we tested Nathan. I had never seen a test turn positive before, but this was about as positive as a test result can be I'm pretty sure lol. That second line lit up like a Christmas tree, here we go! Lynsey and I both tested because we had both just been at volleyball and carpooled with some girls, thankfully we were both negative. The next morning, Adam and Brian also tested, and Brian was positive, too! We think he must have caught Covid from Henry because the boys were using the VR headset in his office. Adam was negative, both Lynsey and I still negative in the morning, so at the least the three of us could go on with our regularly scheduled programming! I was subbing in a second grade class at Horace Mann that day, same class I had the week before. I think it went a bit better this time, I felt a bit more confident. I do think second grade is a bit young for me, and I'll probably look to take jobs third grade and up whenever possible. 

Nathan was off school all week and Brian was working from home. I tried to get Nathan out for a walk every day, and his teacher had sent home some school work for him to do which was nice. He was hardly sick at all - a little congested. He has certainly had colds that were much worse. Brian was also a bit congested but he fared pretty well against Covid as well. Lynsey, Adam and I tested daily and kept testing negative, so life continued on for us. I took a few half day sub jobs Thursday and Friday. Thursday was easy because I was basically just a certificated body in the room for a student teacher, didn't have to do a whole lot. Friday on the other hand, was a significant challenge. I decided last minute to take a job for the afternoon, since I saw an opening for a PE teacher at a nearby school. I thought it might be fun to try PE for a half day, see how it goes. I get to the school, and they tell me that actually they had cancelled PE for the day, and the PE teacher was covering a Kindergarten classroom:-/. I had literally picked up the job an hour earlier, and was not impressed that they couldn't have updated the job posting to reflect reality (or at least give me a call to let me know what it actually was going to be!). I understand that schools are desperate right now, but I felt really blind sided. Covering PE for the afternoon and covering a Kindergarten class are two VERY different things. Whatever, I put my big girl pants on and just rolled with it. There is definitely a reason that I have avoided Kindergarten jobs up until that point, and a reason that I will avoid them in the future. Yes, they are cute. But it takes a special person to be patient enough to teach Kindergarten. I feel like I have a lot of things I am good at but I am big enough to admit that Kindy teaching is not my calling. It was exhausting, and I will not be returning to work at that school.

The weekend was good, although Nathan had to miss his Lacrosse game due to his Covid diagnosis unfortunately. Adam's horse riding was also cancelled for a totally different reason, so other than Lynsey's horse lessons it was a pretty chill weekend. Thankfully Nathan could go back to school on Monday, and Lynsey, Adam and I were still negative by Monday morning so I declared us escaped from from the grips of Covid! I don't know how something so contagious can completely evade three people in a house with two contagious disease vectors, but I am not complaining! I guess our vaccines were working overtime, or maybe we have already had it and didn't know it. I feel very fortunate, as obviously this disease has been a complete nightmare for many others. Brian kept working from home for the rest of the week to be safe. I took a sub job at the high school for the first time on Tuesday, it was kind of fun actually! I think I will probably work there again soon, I'm thinking about taking a day there this week. I was subbing for a special education teacher so I got to see the Transition room there, it made me feel more at ease meeting some of the wonderful paras in the room. I know Adam will be in good hands when he reaches that stage in his life! 

On Thursday and Friday, we had a gardener come and do some cleanup on our yard, weeds and tree trimming etc. It wasn't a perfect job but he did work that I didn't want to do, and now we have a nice clean slate to work with! We are thinking about putting some patio blocks down in the area where the pool goes. If the weather would ever improve, I could start working on it right away - where is Spring anyway! I feel like it's an achievable project, so we'll see how it goes!

Have I mentioned that it's PLAYOFF TIME?? Playoff fever in full swing over here! Oilers are up 2-1 on the Kings right now, last two games have been really fun to watch! Here's hoping they can keep it up!